Speech Technologies

While speech-technology has come a long way, we still haven’t entered the world of Star Trek reruns where the computer can do truly useful things through voice interactions. A big step in the right direction comes from a new app from N.L.P. LLP called HER. Yes, Siri works well for many things but if you tell it you want to buy an iPad Mini with Retina Display, it tells you to check out Apple.com which isn’t the best mobile experience if you want to buy something quickly.

The UC space is alive and well even as it moves from the customer premise to the cloud. To learn more about the market I had a conversation with William Whearty (pictured), VP Sales & Product Marketing at Sennheiser where he told me their 70-year history of making microphones and headphones shows we know how to reproduce sound.

Now, the company is making an aggressive push into various segments of the UC market and is working to add certifications.

One of the challenges call center managers have is testing their systems when deploying new solutions or modifying existing ones. As the most crucial link to many customer interactions, the contact center can play a pivotal role in keeping customers happy, continuing to recommend a company and keeping them coming back for more.

To learn more, I sat down with Lynn Evans who is an independent systems engineer deploying call center solutions. In the past she has worked for banks such as Franklin Templeton Investments and Wells Fargo.

Now that Apple has decided to jump into the biometrics space with Touch ID, we can expect the idea of finger, face and speech recognition to gain more traction. When it comes to biometrics there are different approaches which companies can take to ensure only specific people have access to computers and information. In Apple’s case the company is looking to make it easier to keep your phone secure. The single finger touch is all that is required to get into many of secrets located on your phone.

The challenge is as I blogged yesterday – a sleeping person can inadvertently divulge all their secrets to other people without realizing it.

When asked about the future of wearable tech and whether the market can truly evolve from under one billion dollars to fifty billion in a few years I point people to two trends which we can’t escape.

Miniaturization is unstoppable – the smartphone today is the supercomputer of a decade or so ago. Simply stated – even though battery technology isn’t evolving as fast as we would like, everything else is.

Although physics seems to be limiting battery performance, it doesn't mean the technology isn't advancing, Steve Grady from Cymbet has more

Jennifer Darmour talks about the growth of the Wearable Tech market at Wearable Tech Expo in New York

Five-ten years ago, did people think they would be watching movies on a device which fits in their pocket? Probably not.

Interactive Intelligence is an example of a disruptor which went mainstream and in the process changed the way contact centers operated. Soon after launching in the mid-nineties the company would attract huge crowds to its booths at trade shows as it showed off all-in-one solutions which combined the dialer, ACD, PBX and more into a complete solution which operated seamlessly together. The company was first to espouse the concept and is responsible for getting the competition to emulate them.

In a recent meeting with Joe Staples, CMO and Senior VP of Marketing he told me the company has successfully acted upon its growth strategy from 2006 which was designed to increase its sales to large companies such as Rolex, BMW, Crutchfield, Sony Honda and many others.

For those of you dreaming of the day when your voice can control your home, your wait is over – almost. There are a few demos floating around online showing how Siri’s responses to your commands can trigger the Raspberry Pi-based SiriProxy. The first demo below runs a garage door opener, a NEST thermostat and a cable box while the second video just opens and closes a garage door opener for now.

As Apple and investors took for the next big thing, it seems like home automation is a natural extension for the company. Ironically I tweeted an article today about NEST trying to get into the home automation space too which means the company may eventually be on a collision course with Apple.

If you are going to the Aspect Customer Experience Event in Hollywood, FL this week, be sure to check out TMC’s Erik Linask who has a keynote presentation at 9:15 on Wednesday, June 20th, 2011. He will be speaking about Creating Your Own Vision for Unified Communications and I wish I was there to hear it for myself.

Here is Erik Linask at the recent Cable Show interviewing Adara Technologies in Boston, MA